All in a Day
by Late2SGA
Summary: Sheppard and Rodney explore Atlantis... which could be dangerous, when unknown rooms have unknown purposes...
1. Chapter 1

~ All in a Day ~

An Author's Note follows this chapter.

Word Count, Chapter 1: 5952

Takes place when Woolsey is in charge.

Characters: Mostly Sheppard & Rodney, appearances by Ronon and Teyla, plus Lorne, Beckett, Keller.

Disclaimer: 'Stargate Atlantis' and its characters are not mine. I would not have left them under the aegis of those whose interest lay elsewhere.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

John Sheppard ambled lazily beside Rodney McKay as the two men made their way down an Atlantis corridor. John patiently observed the other man's methodical movements and studied the elegant line of the Lantean walls. There was nothing quite like the wonder of Atlantis. Still... He considered the city's current restricted status, and weighed piles of waiting paperwork against continuing to follow Rodney on a probable goose chase. "Tell me again what I'm doing here?"

Rodney stiffened his back in response but didn't stop or look at John. He kept his gaze on the scanner in one hand and on the tablet balanced on the opposite inner arm.

John continued playfully, "I thought when Woolsey suspended Gate travel that you were going to spend your 'valuable time' on 'ground-breaking research' that only you could pursue."

Rodney bit off each word of his reply. "We're looking for the source of the energy reading I luckily managed to glimpse while I was explaining to Zelenka what I wanted him to do during the ZedPM calculation so I could make better use of my time. Since we're stuck in the city until the Pegasus Super Flu runs its course, and half my lab minions are in the infirmary or confined to quarters, finding the energy source _is_ a better use of my time."

"We have survey teams for this sort of thing."

Rodney continued to move the scanner in a regular up-and-down pattern in front of the walls while his eyes were focused on the tablet screen. "Survey maps, as you very well know, are made so we have an accurate account of all space in the city and can assign our own room designations. Said maps contain general room descriptions. Survey teams verifying said maps were not asked to search for energy sources and only make notations if a room appears of scientific interest or of specific purpose."

" 'Specific purpose'? This place is filled with empty rooms and equipment we can't identify. The only room we know for sure is the Gate Room." John watched his teammate trace his meticulous grid. "You know, using a hand scanner is a bit like using a toothbrush to clean the swimming pool bottom."

Rodney turned, flared, "Internal sensors don't have the precision needed to find a slight ripple in the normal field generated by Ancient tech and this would go a lot faster if you would help!" and then went back to his ups-and-downs.

John frowned. "Which, speaking of valuable time, brings me back to the question, why am _I_ here?"

McKay turtled his neck down between his shoulders and concentrated on his tablet, quickening his tracing pattern.

"...Rod-ney?" John made the name a demand.

Rodney hunched even more and mumbled, "I thought if we got close, you might, you know, get a feeling..."

John worked to keep his jaw from dropping. Was McKay serious? John waited until the other man realized he was walking alone and Rodney turned back to face him. "We've had this conversation before." John refrained from crossing his arms and tapping a toe in frustration. "More than once."

Rodney straightened into a mulish attitude and said pithily, "You haven't even tried and this is important!"

"I agree that finding an unknown energy blip in the city is important," John began soothingly, "but you don't know what you saw, or where," and he twirled a finger vaguely in the air, "except somewhere 'in this area', which covers a helluva lot of rooms, buddy, and as for my 'getting a feeling', I'm tired and getting hungry because we've been at this for nearly two hours." He smiled encouragingly, leading Rodney to agree with him.

Rodney firmed his mouth. "You could at least try."

"Try- " John took a breath. "Asking for more light or even flying the city is a very specific thought. How do I think about something when I don't know what it is we're looking for?"

As awkward as it was, McKay managed to cross his arms, scanner and tablet in hand, and tap a toe.

"Okay," John said in conciliation. "I'll walk along this hallway for another ten minutes, thinking about Ancient energy. If I don't 'get a feeling' by then, we break for lunch."

John didn't give McKay a chance to reply, he simply set off down the middle of the hallway at a slow, steady pace, thinking about Ancient energy...and lunch. And empty rooms. And...

"Rodney?" John stopped and walked to the right-side wall. "I think there's something here."

"Hah," McKay huffed, following at a respectful distance.

"I'm serious," John countered. "What's behind this wall?"

Rodney hurried over and tapped the screen of his tablet. "A large, empty room."

John slid a finger along a fluted edge on the wall. "I don't think Housekeeping's been here in a while." He sneezed, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his nose.

"Get that thing away from me!" Rodney squawked. "How can you use that rag, considering what's happening in Atlantis right now? You're breeding a colony of germs!"

John leveled a smirk at McKay before shoving the handkerchief back into his pocket, then he passed a hand over the door controls. Two tall, extra-wide panels parted, allowing corridor light to spill into the dark unknown.

" 'Large' is right." John stepped forward and the room obligingly illuminated. "And a whole lotta nothing inside." He gazed at the open expanse. "Motif's slightly different," he commented, noting the threads of brown and green in addition to the usual Lantean scheme of silvers and blues. He ran a finger in a groove of the door frame. "Don't think Housekeeping's been here either." He coughed and wiped dust on his trouser leg. John looked over when McKay came to stand beside him. "You got anything?"

Rodney aimed the hand scanner around and then headed for the wall on the right. "There's some kind of faint, underlying power, like a second-order Ancient-tech signal, but I can't pinpoint the origin. Maybe it's something in the walls."

"What we're looking for?"

Rodney frowned. "The reading was so small and fast that it was recorded just as a tiny anomalous bump in the power." He looked at John, who was meandering toward the wall on the left. "If there's extra power, why no instrumentation?"

"Maybe there's a Helia-console," John replied vaguely as he eyed the walls and ceiling. "They could be all over the city."

"Do you really think there are more consoles?" Rodney began walking along his wall, starting the grid pattern. "We'd have a technological interface with Atlantis's systems instead of the biological interface with the Chair, and if we were using a mathematical language, we could ask more abstract questions," he continued excitedly. "Did you try to find a console?"

"Yes, Rodney," John replied overly patiently, "I tried to find a console. It's like asking a travel agent to book a tour without saying train, plane, boat, winter wonderland or sun 'n' surf. No way the agent can fulfill your request. I can't ask Atlantis to pop up a console if I don't know what it is or how it works." He firmed his voice when Rodney started to comment. "Forget it." He continued with steady steps, peering around the large, rectangular hall, periodically running a hand along the decorative wall. "We know anyone with a garage band?"

Rodney snorted. "I can just see Ancients in a band."

"Ever wonder what happened to their stuff?"

"Stuff?" Rodney repeated absently. He was slowly guiding the scanner over the walls, watching his tablet screen.

"Yeah, stuff. The city's empty, Rodney. If they only took what they could carry, where's the swingset, Gramma's dishes, the Grateful Dead collection? All they left behind were the mistakes they didn't bother to clean up."

"Hunh. I can't see an Ancient swingset. They seemed too..."

"Prissy?"

"I was going to say arrogant, opinionated, holier-than-thou, obnoxious, humorless... Well, that Janus guy seemed okay."

John paused in his tour of the perimeter, almost at the far end of the room. "You do realize all those left-behind mistakes, including the Replicators and exploding tumors, not to mention blown-up Gates, probably have his fingerprints all over them." John looked up at the ceiling, then down at the intricate floor pattern, which displayed a distinct design for the perimeter path.

"It isn't the left-behind mistakes, it's the lack of instruction manuals," Rodney opined. He tensed and looked closely at his tablet. "There's a shift in the secondary signal, but no increase in strength." He looked at John. "Are you feeling anything?"

"I'm feeling hungry." John looked up at the ceiling. "There's a recess of some kind up there, but I don't think it's a hatch or skylight." He looked around. "Suppose it could be a hangar, but no access port?" He shook his head. "Let's go. I'm buyin'." When Rodney lowered his tablet, prepared to argue, John forestalled him, lengthening his steps as he cut across the room. "We'll come back. With teams. And more toothbrushes." He grinned and Rodney turned to make last-second swipes at the wall.

John strode toward the door, his gaze returning to the unusual construction of the ceiling. He came to a sudden stop. There was a change in the background hum he identified with Atlantis, as if a new voice had been added. "Rodney."

"Hmm?" McKay was engrossed in his tablet.

"Something's happening." John felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The feeling of 'purpose' associated with the room that he'd first felt in the corridor had become a sense of 'power'. As if something were going to happen. His heart began to pound. John was racing for the door before he'd even fully considered the implication. "Rodney, run!"

John saw Rodney whirl toward him, then a shimmering wall separated them and blocked his path to the exit. Bright light rasped over him and everything vanished in a howl of white.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

"Sheppard!" Rodney ran toward the translucent prison and was cast backward with force enough that he spun through the air, landed awkwardly, and slid into the wall.

Was that the floor...up close? Rodney eased carefully onto his back and took half a breath, then another, and another. He drew in a long, shaky breath before raising a trembling hand. "Med- " he croaked, and cleared his throat. "Medical. This is Dr. McKay. Jennifer, Sheppard's down. Send a med-team. N2-133G. Hurry."

Rodney rolled to his side gently and looked to the center of the room. Sheppard wasn't moving. The colonel was bathed in a bright light that extended to every corner of the rectangular cell created by transparent panels.

Pushing to his feet Rodney braced himself against the wall to massage his knee, then he limped toward the lighted chamber. He approached the glossy barrier slowly. When he was near enough to touch the wavering surface, a static buzz ran over his skin. He glanced at his fallen teammate and then the light in the cell suddenly ceased and his friend was obscured in darkness.

"Oh, no," Rodney uttered in a fearful breath. In the brief glimpse he'd had of Sheppard he'd seen that within only minutes the man had acquired a noticeable growth of beard.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

John woke to the spatter of rain on the side of his face and he blinked his eyes open to the black of night. He was thirsty. Everything hurt, like hit-by-a-truck pain throughout his body. He tensed and puffed his way through the discomfort of pushing to a sitting position. What had happened? "Rodney, you okay?"

...No response. McKay could still be unconscious, or very probably, he'd been outside the range of the lighted beam, on the other side of the wall. John tapped his earbud. "Rodney?"

Hell, John wasn't even sure he was still in Atlantis; maybe he'd been transported somewhere. He had no vest, no P-90, just his sidearm and whatever was in his pockets. He pulled out a penlight and aimed it at the surface beneath him...where he saw a familiar pattern. He turned the light in a circle around him. Four black walls. He realized the distinct floor design he'd noted in the great hall was not to denote the perimeter path as much as to mark the dimensions of the containment cell. He tapped his earbud again. "This is Sheppard. Can anyone hear me?"

He aimed the penlight at the ceiling and could just discern the recess ~ the steady 'rain' was being manufactured. He swung the light downward again. John ran his hand over the smooth flooring and marveled that the water was silently disappearing.

He stiffly rose to his feet. A few uneven steps took him to the wall; it felt almost like glass. John pounded a fist against it and tried to see beyond the darkness. The penlight placed directly against the barrier showed him nothing, only black. He dropped to one knee and pulled his knife from its sheath in order to slip the blade beneath the wall, but he found no seam. The memory of firing his weapon into another barrier made him grimace ~ been there, done that, and not doing it again.

With one hand gliding over the glassy restraint and the other guiding the penlight, John examined his prison. He thought of Rodney and his earlier grid pattern, and there John was, bit by bit, up and down, looking for a flaw, and trying to 'get a feeling' about the room's purpose, what had happened, and why.

He was thirsty. And hungry. He'd missed lunch, and he felt as though he'd missed dinner, too. Water dripped into his eyes. He ran the back of his hand over his brow and wiped his cheek ...and froze in shock. He had a rough idea of the time when he called the lunch break; no more than fifteen minutes could have passed. He fingered the too-long stubble. "Oh, crap."

Something in the room changed. John tensed and looked upward, aiming the penlight overhead. The rain stopped and the lighted beam commenced and John turned away from the blinding brightness and hunched against the wall. His hands skidded on glass as he went to his knees and panted, trying to breathe through the pain, until he slid forward into oblivion.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

Rodney sat on the floor, as close as possible to the wavering wall that separated him from his teammate. His tablet was balanced on one folded leg while he kept the other leg outstretched. He was paging through data he was gathering regarding the energy field when he heard a breathy moan coming from the darkness inside the enclosed area. "Sheppard? Oh, thank God."

"Rodney, you okay?"

"Well, except for the dislocated knee, which means I'll be on crutches for months, plus I skinned my elbow- "

"Rodney?"

"Oh, right. It's some kind of energy field, but I don't know how or why it's generated. I'm reading air circulation, but light from out here can't get in, which is why you're in the dark."

Rodney heard a click, then the colonel was illuminated. The man was soaking wet, sitting on the floor.

"Well, the rain is interesting," Rodney commented as he observed his friend's movements. Sheppard was aiming the small flashlight around the containment area. "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're growing a beard at an accelerated rate- "

"This is Sheppard. Can anyone hear me?"

Rodney's eyes opened in shock. "What?" He tapped his earbud. "Sheppard, do you read?" He leaned a little closer to the barrier and shouted, "Sheppard!" He rose awkwardly to his feet, then he jumped up and slammed his feet down, hoping to shake the ground. "Ow. Damn you, Sheppard, I think I broke my leg."

Inside the darkened area the colonel's actions indicated no knowledge of Rodney's presence. Sheppard staggered to the wall and beat at the barrier. He placed his flashlight on the vertical surface; light hit Rodney in the face, but Sheppard made no sign that he could see outside his prison. He pulled out his knife and ran his hand along the floor at the juncture with the wall before re-sheathing the blade.

"I hope you're not going to shoot at it..." Rodney mumbled, then he reached down for his tablet and scanner and limped after Sheppard as the colonel began investigating the prison walls, running his palm methodically over the barrier.

"You know," Rodney pondered aloud, "this has the Ancient signature, but it doesn't correspond to what we know ~ it's not like a cloak, or stun weapons, like no force field we've seen. It's not like the brig, but still, there has to be a code." He looked up from his display to the rippling wall. "What's the point?"

A few minutes later Rodney heard Sheppard say, "Oh, crap." Suddenly Sheppard aimed the flashlight upward, and a moment later the cell was filled with harsh light.

"Oh, no no no no no!" Rodney looked at his tablet. Energy level constant. And there was nothing he could do. He watched his friend slide to his knees. Rodney cringed, listening to the sound of his teammate's painful breathing. Sheppard made a tense half-cry, then he crumpled, and his flashlight rolled in a short arc when it slipped from his slack fingers.

Rodney kept scanning data. No changes in energy consumption or output. "It's running through a repeating cycle. Why doesn't that show!" He was frantic. "It doesn't make sense!"

The light inside the cell went out and still the readings didn't change. Rodney was staring blankly at Sheppard's lax hand, visible in the limited illumination provided by the flashlight, when the sound of running feet heralded the arrival of the medical team. Rodney turned. "What took you so long?!" he demanded angrily.

"Rodn- " Jennifer Keller began, startled by his vehemence.

"Easy, Doc," Major Lorne intervened, moving to the head of the group. He'd come into the hall with two of his team, right behind the medics. "Everyone's a bit short-handed right now. And there's no transporter nearby. We got here as soon as we could." He headed toward the dimly lighted space in the middle of the room. "What's wrong with the colonel?"

"Stop! Don't get too close," Rodney warned. "This thing has more than an equal-and-opposite rebound to it."

Lorne looked at him steadily, before approaching the shimmering barrier and peering into its confines. "Is he okay?"

"For the time being."

Inside the darkened cell Sheppard moaned and sat up.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

The rain woke John. And thirst like he hadn't had since he was in Afghanistan, plus an empty belly that felt like a lot of bypassed meals. He ran his hand over his chin ~ five o'clock shadow working on Day Two ~ and checked his watch. A short hissing cry escaped him when he tried to sit up ~ falling-off-a-mountain pain had been added to the hit-by-a-truck pains. He gathered up his penlight and took off his t-shirt, laying it out flat on the floor. After he re-buttoned his uniform shirt he wrung the water from the tee into his mouth, laid the tee out again, repeated the process several times before rising slowly to his feet.

He stepped to the wall to continue his grid examination. It wasn't a time-warp barrier, that he knew. That experience had actually felt like six months and he hadn't known anything was wrong while living through it. This time, he knew something was wrong. Time was passing normally, according to his watch and his mental clock, yet he was working on a full beard. And he was hungry, as though he were missing days of meals.

The light-dark sequence was like day-night, but it wasn't a light to mimic the sun; the chamber was warmer during the lighted period, but not like sunshine. If time wasn't affected, was the light about growth, maturation...aging? Great. He'd be celebrating his one-hundredth birthday by midnight.

John took a deep breath. Rodney would figure it out.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

"Colonel Sheppard? This is Lo- "

"He can't hear you. Or see you," Rodney interrupted.

They watched the colonel roll up his wet t-shirt, wring water into his mouth, then lay the shirt flat to repeat the process.

Lorne leaned a little closer. "Is that- Does he have a beard?" He looked back at Rodney, who nodded grimly. "Why the rain? What is this thing?" Lorne asked and pulled out a flashlight.

"A containment cell and your light won't do any good."

"Containment? Like the brig?"

"No, not like the brig, and I don't know what it is."

"His beard. Is it a time-field?"

"No. He's in the here and now. Inside the cell there's a cycle going on, like night and day, but I don't know how it works."

"Can you shut it down?"

Rodney gritted his teeth in exaggerated patience and looked around the hall ostentatiously. "Do you see any moving parts? Any Tech-interface, any consoles, buttons, switches, knobs, slots, hooks, levers, pulleys? Any sign pointing to 'On-Off'?!"

Lorne continued evenly, unruffled by the histrionics, "What about pulling the ZPM? Disconnecting the power?"

"Oh, gee, why didn't I think of that!?" Rodney glared at the major and continued in a less sarcastic but still harried voice. "Zelenka is running a procedure on the ZedPM, which I won't bother to attempt to explain to you, and interrupting the process could have disastrous results, the least of which is scrambling its interface so we can never use it again."

"Can we wait it out? Disengage it after the procedure?"

"What Radek's doing will take hours. Sheppard doesn't have hours." Lorne raised his brows in inquiry and Rodney continued, "I don't know how it works, but I don't think it was meant for humans. It's accelerating certain biological processes, using up his reserves. He's thirsty, and, I assume, hungry. A complete cycle ~ a day ~ lasts a little over eight minutes, which means Sheppard will probably die of starvation by four o'clock."

"It could be sooner than that," Keller interjected, stepping toward the two men. "If he's one of the more susceptible ones and he's been exposed to the virus, he'll need early medical intervention. We've had our first fatality ~ treatment was delayed."

Rodney opened his eyes in horror and turned toward the cell. "Earlier...he was sneezing...and coughing..."

The cell was flooded with light and Sheppard went to his knees, gasping for breath in short, controlled spurts.

"Okay, Doc," Lorne said grimly, "what are the options? We have to get him out of there. Now."

Rodney tore his gaze from Sheppard's agony and looked at his tablet. There was still no increase in power consumption to account for the production of the lighted beam. No changes.

"Doc. We can't leave him there. We have to shut it down."

Rodney peered at this tablet. What- ? "Say that again."

"We can't just leave him there."

"No, about shutting it down. And think, 'shut it down'."

"What?"

"Just do it! Concentrate on shutting it down!"

Lorne paused before speaking: "Shut. It. Down."

Rodney looked around at the waiting medical and military personnel and singled out one man. "You, Ryan," he shouted at a tall, thin nurse and snapped his fingers repeatedly.

The man pointed to himself. "Riker, sir."

"Whatever." Rodney waved him over impatiently. "Stand by Lorne." Rodney positioned the two men side by side. "Now, I want you to say 'shut it down' and think about shutting down the field, nullifying the wall, making it disappear. Concentrate."

The men complied while Rodney monitored his tablet.

"Doc, what's going on?" Lorne asked urgently.

"I registered the teeniest shift in the secondary signal," Rodney answered excitedly. "This just might work." He tapped his earbud. "Chuck, contact all natural-gene carriers and send them to N2-133G. Immediately! It's an emergency!" He re-keyed his radio. "Carson, get down here right away, and bring any natural genes you have in the infirmary, even if they're unconscious. Wake them up or wheel them on gurneys if you have to!"

Lorne stepped closer. "What's going on?" he repeated.

"I think if all the natural-gene carriers work together they can shut off the barrier." At Lorne's disbelieving look, Rodney continued, "Look, if Michael and a bunch of his...friends could get together and contact a Hive in space, I think a group of gene carriers can bring down one wall. And before you ask, I don't know why, but gene-therapy people don't seem to count." He knew, in the midst of the emergency, that he felt slightly cheated.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

John woke, feeling pain and cold and so tired he could barely move. He checked his watch and laid his t-shirt out to collect water. He'd had to force himself to sit up, and getting to his feet required everything he had, even in slow motion.

He stumbled to the obsidian wall to continue his exploration of the cell. He leaned heavily on the barrier and slid along the glassy surface using his shoulder.

If the chamber was what he thought it was, it was meant to manage and contain heat, light, air and water. Which meant Rodney had to find the controls somewhere in the outer room.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but I know you're out there, buddy, trying to figure this out. Could you hurry it up? I'd like to get out of here before I look like Rip Van Winkle."

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

Rip Van Winkle. Guilt ran through Rodney. There had to be a code or a control to shut down the energy barrier. Why no console, no Tech-interface? Why couldn't he figure it out? The only idea he had might not even work. "Where is everyone? What's taking so long!" He turned toward the main door of the hall.

"Rodney, they'll be here," Keller assured him, rubbing his arm. "It hasn't been that long. They'll be here."

There was a shuffling in the doorway and Ronon appeared, braced wearily against the frame.

"Ronon! You should still be in the infirmary!" Keller ran over to re-direct her patient, but he waved her aside.

"How's Sheppard?" He stumbled with Keller's support toward the darkened chamber, where Sheppard was performing his grid search. "What's going on? What is this place? Sheppard!"

"He can't hear you," Rodney explained. "Help is coming. He just needs to hang on." He eyed Ronon carefully. "You really should be in bed," he commented, which earned him a solid glare. "Okay, fine. Should we expect Teyla, too?"

Ronon had enough life in him to find some humor. "Don't think so. Torren's running around is wearing her out. Last time I saw her she said they were both going down for a nap."

The light came on in the chamber, just as Sheppard reached a corner. He grimaced and used the angle of the walls to stay on his feet. His breathing was loud and raspy and painful to hear.

"Why won't he let go!" Rodney cried.

"He can't let go, Doc," Lorne responded. "He's trying to make the most of the time he has, trying to find the way out."

Rodney whispered fervently, "Just let go," and as if he'd heard the words, Sheppard collapsed in unconsciousness.

Everyone turned at the sound of a distant stampede of feet and seconds later, dozens of personnel entered the hall ~ on foot, in wheelchairs and on gurneys, just as Rodney had ordered.

"Rodney," Carson Beckett began breathily, "many of these people are seriously ill..." He became silent before the stark image of Sheppard, crumpled in the corner of the inner cell.

"It's Sheppard's life, Carson," Rodney hissed.

Major Lorne raised his voice. "Quiet, everyone!"

"Colonel Sheppard is stuck in there," Rodney lectured, "and the only way out is if you people concentrate on removing the wall. I want you all to think about shutting it down, turning it off, making it go away." Rodney saw determination as well as confusion and fear in the faces in the group. "It's an energy field. It's Ancient tech. It will recognize you. So, all of you together, concentrate on turning off this wall and...making it gone. Don't think about anything else, just 'turn it off'. Now!"

Rodney had first bunched the people in a block, but he began to pull them to the side, one by one, to form more of a line, nearer the outer wall, away from the lighted cell. He was monitoring his tablet, trying to locate the greatest shift in the underlying, second-order signal in the room. As he moved the people closer to the far end of the great hall, spreading them out, the energy shift started to resemble what he'd seen earlier with Sheppard, before the barrier had appeared.

He had the line spread out along the back wall and was beginning to regroup the people when he heard quick, light footfalls racing toward them. Rodney looked up to see Teyla enter the main doors. She cried, "John!" just as the barrier dissolved.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

The splash of water on his face brought John abruptly awake. He glanced around to reassure himself.

"Here, let me take care of that," Carson Beckett was saying with some exasperation. "Ye're making a mess of it, Rodney."

"Well, I'm sorry," McKay groused defensively, "but this thing is leaking." He was wiggling his fingers, letting loose a spray of droplets from a soggy ice pack on his knee.

"Ye're the one who wanted an ice pack, not a cold pack," Beckett reminded him while expertly tightening the leaking lid.

McKay readjusted his computer on his lap and noticed John's watchful gaze. "Sleeping Beauty is with us again. Do you think you can stay more than a few minutes this time? Teyla had to leave because she had better things to do than watch you sleep."

"Rodney," Beckett admonished, before shifting his attention to John. "She'll be back later. How d'ye feel, son?"

John covered a yawn with his hand. "Like I need a shave." He widened his eyes and blinked. "Like I could still sleep for a week." He added in afterthought, "...and could eat a horse."

"Well, ye're certainly healthy as a horse, Colonel," Beckett said with a smile. "All yer tests have come back. I'd like to keep an eye on ye for a while, but ye check out on every level."

"What about the Super Flu?" Rodney inquired. "All the sneezing and coughing. He probably gave it to me," he accused.

"Colonel Sheppard does not have the virus, Rodney," Beckett stated. He added, with a twinkle in his eye aimed at John, "I'd say he has a high sensitivity to Ancient house dust."

"Dust?" Rodney squeaked in disbelief.

"Keep it down, Rodney, or ye'll have to leave." Carson spoke firmly. "And, Colonel, bed rest is the best thing for ye, to build up yer reserves. Ye've had a long week today, son. Get some sleep." He patted John's shoulder before walking away.

"House dust." McKay glared at John.

John glanced around the full infirmary and felt guilty for taking up a bed. "He looks better," he remarked, observing Ronon.

"I don't know what he thought he could do, and all he did was add to his time in here." Rodney sounded disgusted.

John didn't try to explain. "Hope I don't look as old as I feel," he said when he stretched and felt an ache in every muscle.

Rodney switched gears. "You weren't exactly aging, you know. It's more comparable to those drugs they give patients to increase production of red blood cells ~ some of your processes were just in overdrive." He glowered. "One more instance when a simple warning sign or set of instructions would've been useful. Like the Gate Room. Ancients are just born knowing to stay out of the way of the kawoosh? We're supposed to know the pattern in the floor shows the cell dimensions?" He paused, then asked quietly, "What did it feel like?"

"Fire ants and sandpaper...on the underside of my skin," John drawled and Rodney shuddered. "Can we use the hall?"

"You mean for food production? Hell, no. In theory, a great idea ~ no coffee rationing. We'd be able to produce any crop, at will, in a day, give or take. However, different crops require dif ferent kinds of light, different kinds of soil, different amounts of rain, light, heat, what-have-you, and, like I said, we have no in struction manual. We can't program the room."

"It would increase our self-sufficiency and we'd be able to help worlds that are having a bad year."

Rodney snorted. "We know the rain comes from desalination tanks and it's recycled. Somehow. The air is recycled. Somehow. The 'overdrive' beam is programmed. Somehow. Are specific crops to be used? Is the soil super-charged? Is it supposed to be in bins? Dumped on the floor? All that's left is...house dust."

"So, the previous tenants swept out the dirt, but left nanites," John commented dryly. "If that hall is for growing crops, what are the glass rooms we're currently using for greenhouses?"

"Do I look like Answer Man? Maybe they liked to enjoy the sun and surf without getting wet."

"Are we back to 'prissy' again?" John smirked.

"Actually, a manual in this case wouldn't help," Rodney mused. "It took every natural gene we could drag out of bed just to shut down the thing ~ barely ~ so there's no way we could handle the subtleties of programming. We don't even know why or how the room was activated, except it recognized you and your Super Gene and we all know Atlantis likes to please you."

"So it's my fault?" John exclaimed.

"Well...you were feeling hungry..."

"I was thinking about a nice turkey sandwich, Rodney, not a field of corn!" John relaxed his frown. "At least now you know what caused that little blip in the sensors."

"Actually, the hall is not the source of the energy blip." John just stared until Rodney explained. "We found the hall because Atlantis was responding to you ~ you were hungry; she led you to food." Rodney continued, not allowing John's rebuttal, "But, the hall has a constant power draw from the ZedPM. Like a tv, which is always 'on', in order for the remote to work ~ it draws trickle power. What actually runs the accelerator-beam and the rainmaker is power from solar sources and stored-energy cells. I was looking for blips in the ZedPM and nothing ever changed."

"So, we're still looking for another room?"

"Well, as you said, there are lots of empty rooms out there, or rooms that appear to be empty. The survey teams didn't find it. If you, and only you, hadn't been thinking about food, the hall would never have powered up and we'd still think it was empty. Lots of empty rooms may not be empty."

"That's a scary thought," John acknowledged. "And you're telling me that since I turned it on, I could've turned it off."

Rodney looked smug. "What were you thinking?"

"I was trying to 'get a feeling' of the purpose of the room so I could figure the way out." John shook his head slightly about his own stupidity. "I should've been thinking, 'pull the plug'."

"In the end what we have is another empty room, we think we know its purpose, and we still can't use it," Rodney griped.

"So...you wanna form a garage band?" *~*

-

Author's Note: There is another tag scene (Chapter Two). This is a note to tell people to read no more if they are not John-and-Teyla fans. The story can end here and it is complete as a suspenseful, angsty drama. Stop here, if you do not want to read ship stuff.

Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: This is a Sheyla ending. The story takes place S7-ish, so Torren is a toddler. In the timeline of my stories, John & Teyla would get together near the end of S6, this story would occur in S7, and 'Misdirection' would take place after this story.

There is another Author's Note at the end of this chapter.

Word count: 284

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

Teyla was singing, one of those Athosian lullabies she often sang to Torren. John stayed quiet, listening, before he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "I've always liked that one." He yawned. "How long was I out?"

"Only an hour. Jennifer says it will take a couple more days before you are yourself again."

"Carson prescribed time in bed." He wiggled his eyebrows.

"As I recall his instructions, he said _'bed rest'_."

"You know," he reached for her hand, "if this kind of thing keeps happening, you're going to be married to a very old man."

"Who will still be just as handsome and desirable." She raised a hand to run a finger over his cheek. "Mmm. I like it much better without the beard."

He threaded his fingers with hers. "Have I told you today how serenely beautiful you are?"

She smiled a womanly smile. "The serenity you think you see will not last. And I will miss it ~ the connection with Atlantis. It is a comfortable feeling, a sense of belonging." She brought his hand to her tummy. "Atlantis recognizes her."

John raised his gaze from their joined hands to smile into her eyes. "I won't ask how you know. 'Her'?"

"Yes, and very much your daughter. I know she felt my distress when I saw you in that chamber."

John squeezed her hand in reassurance, then he blew out a breath and relaxed his head back on the pillow. "Oh, boy," he muttered gloomily. He braced his forearm on his brow.

"You are not pleased?"

John turned his head to look at her. "I'm just not looking forward to telling McKay that we're not actually naming her 'Meredith'." *~*

-

Author's Note: Although there is a slight difference in 'underlying meaning', the story remains basically the same for those who do not read this chapter. However, I wanted to hint, as it was when Teyla was pregnant with Torren and she had enhanced Wraith ability, that being pregnant with this child, who has the Ancient gene, gives her a certain power with Ancient tech. So, I don't know if I succeeded, but I wanted to hint that Teyla and the baby are the real reason the energy barrier came down.

Thanks for reading.


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